Revisiting 40 years of Spanish Democracy: A Success Story?

Xosé M. Núñez-Seixas, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Santiago de Compostela, gives a lecture at the University of Ottawa on issues related to the Spanish Constitution, the process of democratic transition and its consolidation, with a special focus on its interpretations.

In order to bring perspectives of the political reality of Spain as a country, and in the framework of the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the Constitution, Professor Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas will address issues related to the Spanish Constitution, the process of democratic transition and its consolidation, with a special focus on its interpretations, considering that it has been recently called into question by some political and social actors. He will also refer to the territorial and the historical memory issues. This lecture will be presented by Professor Rosalía Cornejo-Parriego.

As part of this lecture series, three conferences will be held at Canadian universities: McGill University (Montreal), University of Ottawa, York University (Toronto). The lectures will be in English with possibility of questions in French at the end. They will be moderated by professors of each of the host universities.

About Xosé M. Núñez Seixas

Xosé M. Núñez Seixas (Ourense, 1966) studied at the universities of Santiago de Compostela and Dijon, and obtained his Ph.D. at the European University Institute in Florence (1992). He is currently Full Professor of Modern History at the University of Santiago de Compostela (on leave); between 2012 and 2017 he has also been Full Professor of Modern European History at the Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich. He has been Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Bielefeld, Freiburg, Paris X, Paris VII, Zentrum für zeithistorische Forschung Postdam, Rennes, Verona, City University of New York and Stanford University, as well as recurrent visiting professor at the College of Europe (Warsaw).

His work focuses on comparative history of nationalist movements and national and regional identities in Europe, as well as on the analysis of overseas migration from Spain to Latin America, and the study of modern war and war experiences in the twentieth century, focusing on the Eastern front during the Second World War and the Spanish Civil War.

Among his recent books are: Icônes littéraires et stéréotypes sociaux: L’image des immigrants galiciens en Argentine (1800-1960) (Besançon 2013); Camarada invierno. Experiencia y memoria de la División Azul, 1941-1945 (Barcelona, 2016; German ed., Münster 2016); with L. Gálvez and J. Muñoz Soro, España en democracia, 1975-2011 (Barcelona/Madrid 2017); with J. Moreno, Los colores de la patria. Símbolos nacionales en la España contemporánea (Madrid 2017); Suspiros de España. El nacionalismo español, 1808-2018 (Barcelona 2018) and Patriotas transnacionales. Estudios sobre nacionalismos y transferencias culturales en el siglo XX (Madrid, 2018). He has also coedited the collections Metaphors of Spain. Representations of Spanish National Identity in the 20th Century (New York/Oxford 2017); War Veterans and the World after 1945 (London 2018); Regionalism and Modern Europe: Identity Contruction and Movements from 1890 to the Present (London 2018), and Historia mundial de España (Barcelona 2018).